Oh! There are so many things that need to be done, so many of them about which we can do little but still all we can; however, today, I think it’s important that each of us gets outside as best we’re able. I think we should take a minute or two to simply appreciate our Earth, and take joy in its beauty and wonder as best we can; reconnect to it. I hope everyone who reads here is able to get at least a bit of time outside today (don’t get struck by lightning, or anything else unsafe!), and can just be with our planet and its inhabitants. There is peace to be found, which will build strength to continue. But, mostly, everything isn’t all about our battles. Hearing birdsong, watching squirrels frolic, and seeing butterflies flutter, is good for us.
I am riding with a friend to a Humane Society board meeting this evening. I don’t tend to leave the house much in the evenings; I prefer daytime stuff, and tucking up in the evening. But, I do want to get back into helping the shelter, and they need board members, so I’m going. It is causing me anxiety; I think I’d rather drive myself, but it’ll be fine. So Chuck Drew A Thing, and here it is below:
WICHITA, Kan. (KWCH) – Connie Palacioz, a World War II-era “Rosie the Riveter” who helped build B-29 Superfortress bombers in Wichita and later spent decades volunteering with the restored B-29 DOC aircraft, has died. She was 101.
During World War II, more than six million women entered the workforce in a variety of roles, including factory work that was crucial to the war effort.
Palacioz went to work at The Boeing Co. in Wichita at age 17 and served as a riveter on the B-29 production line from 1943 to 1945. The Wichita factory built 1,644 B-29 Superfortress bombers during the war.
In 2000, when B-29 DOC returned to Wichita for restoration, Palacioz was 75 years old. She joined the team working to return the aircraft to flight, according to a statement from Doc’s Friends, Inc., the non-profit she volunteered at.
“She was the first one up when she was on tour with us, and the last one to leave the airplane. She was so proud of what she and her volunteers and what she and her team had built,” said B-29 DOC Executive Director Josh Wells.
Palacioz remained an active member of the organization for 26 years. She served as an advocate for the nonprofit’s mission while sharing her own story and those of other women who worked in wartime production.
“Connie’s life journey was inspiring, and it’s been our great honor to have shared her legacy and life story through B-29 DOC,” Wells said in a statement. “Not only was Connie a Wichita and Kansas legend, but her story and work during World War II on the B-29 Superfortress production line also made her a national hero.”
Wells also shared the impact Palacioz had on his life.
“She was an inspiration to me. She was an inspiration to many people, and I think she’s a trailblazer,” Wells said.
Not only was Palacioz a trailblazer for women, she was also a supporter of civil rights, as she worked with a minority coworker when no one else would.
“Jerry was African-American, and Mom said, ‘that’s fine with me, I’m a minority, I’m Mexican, I’ll work with her.’ Then they wanted to separate them, and they didn’t separate,” said Tish Nielsen, Palacioz’s daughter.
Palacioz often reflected on her role in the wartime effort while speaking with visitors to the aircraft.
“When visitors come and they ask us, and then I tell them that I worked there and that I did this, and everything is still in order,” Palacioz said. “You know, I always tell them there were seven rivets missing when it was in the desert.”
“I wish all the others that worked with me could be here, but of course, they are gone,” she said. “But, I don’t know, it’s been great. It just is something that I can’t tell you exactly how, but I feel wonderful to be here.”
For many years, Palacioz’s story was unknown, even to her daughter, which Nielsen pointed to as a sign of her humility.
“When you would ask her, ‘why didn’t you tell us you were Rosie the Riveter?’ She said, ‘Well, I was just doing my job.’ And that’s the way she was,” Nielsen said.
Wells said it’s important to keep stories like Palacioz’s alive.
“It’s very important that we carry on their stories and honor people like Connie, to make sure that the next generation knows about them,” Wells said.
Nielsen said the thing she’ll remember most about her mother is her faith and her hard work throughout life.
“I would say she was a very faithful, faith-filled woman, who was very determined, and enjoyed life,” Nielsen said.
Funeral services are pending. A public celebration of life will be planned, according to the statement.
stuff here on Playtime, day to day; lots of material from which to listen, choose, skim, read in full, watch. Today is Sunday. I frequently take the day to get my emails cleared and read the stuff I haven’t gotten to through the week. Sunday is the day a new Lit Hub email comes, and today I indulged myself by opening it before many other things, including last week’s Lit Hub. I did that because I admire Mae West; also I tend to use the F-word a lot inside my home and inside my head. Today’s Lit Hub covers each of these subjects along with its usual variety. If you likeand/or use the F-word, and/or are interested in the etymology of the F-word, you should read the Lit Hub story you can see by clicking this sentence. And now, here is the bit of info of interest about Mae West. We may all be aware that she was so much more than the caricature we tend to receive; she was an ally of LGBTQ+, a playwright, and more. This short bit has some links to her work. Enjoy!
Monstrosity Plucked From Garbage Can: On Mae West’s early career as a controversial playwright.
Mae West is an icon: literally, a representative symbol. In the popular imagination, Mae West stands in for a certain type of seduction—blonde, campy, one-liner-heavy. But though West is best known for her distinctive performances, she was also a controversial playwright; before West established the acting persona that would stick in the public’s minds for a century, she was offending critics and facing jail time for shows that she called “comedy-dramas of life,” illuminating elements of life yet to be popularized onstage.
West’s plays The Dragand The Pleasure Manbrought a type of communal gay camp onstage that at turns scandalized and excited a largely straight audience. And back in 1926, before Diamond Lil, her play-turned-movie about a good-natured prostitute, launched West to bona fide stardom, she wrote and performed another play—SEX—which would lay the groundwork for the plot of Diamond Lil but polarized audiences in a way Diamond Lil never did.
In SEX, West starred as a prostitute named Margy Lamont. The plot is winding, complicated, and not the point; viewer response was created by the first two acts, where the audience saw Margy working in a brothel and then in a nightclub. Critics were universally horrified by SEX. TheNew Yorker described the script as “street sweepings”; the New York Herald Tribune said that “never in a long experience of theatre-going have we met with a set of characters so depraved”; the slightly more provocative New York Daily Mirror titled their review “SEX an Offensive Play, Monstrosity Plucked From Garbage Can, Destined to Sewer.”
It wasn’t that there had never been sex or representations of sex workers on Broadway before; but critics found SEX reminiscent of burlesque (stigmatized at the time), as well as uncomfortably realistic in its treatment of sex work and class. As Marybeth Hamilton puts it in “SEX, The Drag, and 1920s Broadway,” “Margy was . . . an ill-paid sex-worker who traded her body on the streets. West made that fact unmistakable. As West embodied her, Margy was palpably from the lower orders . . . Margy is bitterly conscious of herself as a member of the oppressed class, and the grimness and harshness of her manner are reflected in the world she inhabits.” Imagine Mae West’s characteristic delivery without the irony: that was Margy Lamont. Understandably (though not correctly), people were scandalized.
As usually happens when people freak out about a piece of art, ticket sales went up. Then, on February 9, 1927, SEX was raided by the acting mayor, and West spent $14,000 to bail herself and her fellow actors out of jail. As she refused to shut down the show, West was sentenced to ten days in jail for “corrupting the morals of youth.” She was released two days early for good behavior, and the jail time essentially operated as a publicity stunt, launching her in the media as a “bad girl” of theater.
West capitalized on the publicity of SEX and took it as an opportunity to retool her persona, creating Diamond Lil. West plays a sex worker in Diamond Lil as well, but this time, it was funny. Lil was constantly making jokes, and West played her with a veil of irony, so an audience could interpret all of the raunchiness as satire. Plus, the specter of class was never mentioned, making it easier to swallow for middle-class audiences. West called Lil “a little spicy, but not too raw”; this was the beginning of the West performances we know today. I’m grateful for West’s fame, and her later work; but I’m glad we know what was lost in translation.
I did some reviews on the Cass report because it was supported by so many anti-trans bigots. Turns out there were so many lies and errors in the report that it became clear the purpose was to discredit the clinic and get it shut down. The report was driven by anti-trans people and even Cass herself was well known to be anti-trans. But what is so irksome is the lies still get told and circulated repeatedly even when they are pointed out. The idea of social contagion was found to be entirely made up by people desperate to keep their child from transitioning. The idea came from a website set up for parents that had kids transitioning and they hated it. The Cass report used lies from that site as if they were medical facts saying that parents were not told and children were being rushed to transition, when even the parents admitted they had all the information in writing that they had to sign and the biggest complaint was how long it took to get seen by the clinic with many kids going through puberty before they got gender affirming care. The idea of large amounts of detransitioners is totally made up as real studies have found it is less than 2% and the regret levels are well below any other medical procedure. I wish haters and bigots would understand if they have to make up stuff and lie to prove their point then they have no point to make. They just hate the idea of people not accepting they are the gender / sex assigned at birth and don’t want to accept new medical data. Hugs
Scottie's Playtime 